


Of Love And War

by iimprobableone



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, Amputee Sherlock, Angry Sherlock, Angst, BAMF Molly Hooper, Bitter Sherlock, F/M, Feminist Themes, Hurt/Comfort, Literally lol, Nurse Molly, PTSD Sherlock, Pining, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Sherlock Makes John Look Calm, Sherlolly - Freeform, Soldier Sherlock, War, World War I, inspired by Parade's End
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6066040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimprobableone/pseuds/iimprobableone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1916. World War One has been raging for two years.</p><p>Sherlock is a wounded soldier, sent to an emergency hospital in Étaples,France - far behind the front line, lucky to be alive. He's bitter, depressed, and angry. </p><p>If not for a nurse named Molly, it's debatable as to whether he would've ever had the will to recover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 19 Pounds Lighter

1916

 

_Over the tops. A big push._

_That was all they spoke of. It was what killed most of them, if illness didn’t get to them first. But the truth was, most men had been killed by the no man’s land before they had even set foot onto it._

_Now, it was his turn._

_He tried not to shake. Tried to tell himself who he was – who he knew he had always been. Who he would be, when this war was finally over. But times of peace, they seemed like another world; another life. Not this one, not his._

_It was fine. It would be fine. All he was doing was mending wires, after all._

_The rain, it never stopped. It was never gentle, a soft patter overhead, like home. It came down in sheets, falling hard and fast and unrelenting. Water ran off the edges of his circular tin hat as he took his binoculars and straightened up, looking out onto the nothingness. The land that belonged to neither side. Something that, in theory, was free, but, well… If that was what it was to be free – if to be free was to be ruined – then he would gladly elect to be a prisoner for the rest of his life. However, how long that would be, he did not know._

_He dug his shorts nails into the dirt as he pulled himself up out of the trench, the roll of barbed wire on his back making the weight he had to haul upwards greater. The mud seemed a part of him after only a few months, although just that short time felt longer than eternity itself._

_The team spent a while creeping in the darkness, watching the enemy trench, only a few feet away at this point, with ever-growing caution. Cutting the enemy wires and repairing their own, to make it easier when the time came. It was easy work, if you didn’t count the constant water in his boots, the cold against his skin, the rain soaking into his clothes, and the one tone grey of war that seemed to cover everything he saw, like a film, or a layer of inescapable grime._

_That’s when it happened._

_The man watched almost in third person, as he fell into the mud, onto his hands and knees, the barbed wire painfully breaking his fall, cutting deep into his lower thigh. Involuntarily, he let out a cry of pain.  
Everyone snapped to look at him, now only a mess of a man on the ground, struggling not to writhe with the pure agony that ached through him. His leg was set on fire with it, and he felt his blood course hot and fast out of the wound. He realised, with a pang, that an artery had been hit. Sucking in air through gritted teeth, he pulled his leg from the wire, hearing a strange springing noise as the wire was set free._

_German voices._

_He had alerted them. He had damned the entire team._

_Then they were all running back to the British trench. Leaving him behind._

_Dragging himself into a hollow made by a bomb that had fallen short of its target, he looked up at the sky. Thought of England. Of London. Of all the live he would never get to live. God, he didn’t want to die. Not like this. The rain pelleted hard onto the thin skin of his face, and, despite himself, panic began to set in. Was he really going to die? Was this really it? He pressed futile fingers to the gaping cut, trying to stem the blood flow. But it was all too little, all too late. He knew that much._

_When he saw the white clouds rolling across the warzone towards him, he knew it was over. Fumbling into his pack, he retrieved a gas mask with shaking hands. The gas couldn’t have been less than a foot away, now. Heart thudding, palms sweating, he fixed the mask to his face. It was a juvenile contraption, cheap and crude, because the government knew that the soldier that wore the gas mask wasn’t worth the price of producing effective ones._

_The gas came over him, blocked out the black, starless sky. Everything was white with it. He tried to take shallow breaths. Suddenly, he started to feel his throat spiking with shards of pain. The skin around his eyes began to feel inflamed, and with a sinking heart, he realised that his mask was faulty._

_Panic rose, and then tears were pricking at his eyes, and he tried to reason with the death that he faced._

* * *

Molly awoke with a sudden gasp, shooting straight up in bed.

Unfortunately, she had yet to become accustomed to sleeping in a bunkbed, and so, her forehead was met with the bottom of the bed above her. Momentarily, the world was pivoting around her, confusion piling on top of her pain, to form a deadly concoction of strange panic. 

“Come on, Miss Hooper – this is no time for your antics!” Sister Mary’s voice, hissing as not to wake the other girls. “You have a phone call waiting. Those things cost money, you know.”

“Sorry, Sister Mary.” Body aching and joints protesting as she got out of the bed, the springs creaking as they became unburdened. She wrapped a dressing gown over her white nightdress, put her slipper on, and shuffled behind the nun, watching as her habit bobbed. “Did they say who it was?”

“No, they just asked for you.”

Molly gave no reply, but her heart was already in her throat. For all she knew, it could be the ministry of defence, ringing to tell her that her brother was… 

She reached the phone box, and picked up the earpiece.

“Hello?” Her voice was apprehensive, wavering, still rough from sleep.

“Molly?”

“Mum! What are you doing, calling at this sort of hour?”

“Tom’s to be on leave in a few weeks! Isn’t that wonderful, darling?”

Her worry deflated. “How do you know?”

“His mother told me today. I suspect you haven’t got your letter yet?” 

“The post comes in every other day, here.” She paused, ran her tongue over her teeth. “I –”

The sudden noise that burst through the double doors was all but deafening. Doctor Watson was following behind a wounded soldier being wheeled to the operating theatre by a two other nurses. The man was panicked, blood soaked, and deathly white. He was trying to rear up, he was spluttering, and howls of pain escaped him. It seemed as if he was completely out of his right mind, overwhelmed with the pain he must be in. Dirt and mud was clogged in his cropped, curly black hair. 

“Nurse!” Doctor Watson shouted at her, “We need you!”

“Mum, I have to go.”

“What? Dear-”

“I love you, goodbye!”

She rammed the earpiece down into its stand, gathered her nightdress, and ran into the operating theatre. Molly herself had cleaned it down only a few hours prior. The man was being set down onto the steel bed. 

Not needing instructions, the nurses began to cut his ripped, dirty uniform off. All of his clothes were thrown into the bin, and then he lay naked before them, drifting in and out of consciousness. His face was covered in a sheen of thick sweat. His eyes were blue-green, yet starting to turn a strange milky white, as she had seen so many times before. Pressing a damp, cold cloth to his face, he seemed momentarily soothed. Exerting himself, he looked up, and right through her.

“Where am I? Who am I? Am – Am I going to die?” His voice croaked and cracked, as if he hadn’t had water in days. “Please, I don’t… I don’t want to…”

She brushed his hair off his forehead, as she cleaned the blood, dirt and sweat from his face. “You’ll be fine. I promise, you’re going to be fine.”

“There’s no anaesthetic. There’s no bloody anaesthetic!” 

Her face fell, and she looked to Doctor Watson, his complexion ruddy with frustration. “What do we need that for?”

“His leg needs to be amputated, Molly.” He reflected for a moment. “Right. Mary, start with the restraints.”

“You’re mad!” Mary began. “You can’t expect him to-”

“What else should I do? Let the man bleed out and die?” He shut his eyes. They were heavily bagged, and it seemed the war had aged him unduly. “Molly, you comfort the poor soul. God knows, he’ll need it.”

“You can’t – please, please, you can’t –” The man was blabbering in terror. 

“We have no choice. I’m sorry.”

“Not my leg. Please, please,”

Molly took hold of his hand, held it in both of hers. “What’s your name?”

“Sher – Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Can you see me, Mr Holmes?”

“No, I-” His eyes, unseeing, started to fill up with tears, and he focused them straight ahead, at the ceiling. “I can’t see a thing.” A tear slipped down his face, into his hair. “I’ve gone blind.”

“Focus on my voice. Can you do that?”

His teeth were gritted in anticipation of the pain. “Yes.” He whispered.

“Where do you live?”

“London.”

“Oh, so do I!” She cleared her throat. “Tell me about your flat, Mr Holmes.”

“It’s… old. Two-hundred-and-twenty-one Baker Street. There’s an old woman that lives underneath me, she –”

The first pull of the saw, and he let out a shout. His fingers curled tight around her small hands, at a crushing strength.

“You’re okay, you’re okay.” She attempted to sooth.

Then Doctor Watson got to work, and Molly put her hands on the man’s bare shoulders to hold him down.

He screamed out in agony, begging them to stop. It was unnerving, sounds of pure anguish around them, echoing off the tiled walls. Tears streamed down his face and Molly couldn’t bring herself to look down at what was being done. He begged them to stop with his shouts, called out for God, howled for peace. Eventually, the pain so overwhelming, he resorted to sobs that wracked his entire body, eyes screwed shut.


	2. Mud and Linen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chores, changings, and brothers.

Molly tied the strings of her apron behind her back into a largely looped bow, only sparing a second to flatten down some stray hairs in the mirror, before leaving the dorm. The dorms were cramped and only a few steps up from the tents that the soldiers lived in outside, bunk bed like sardines in a can. The stench of harsh bleach violated her nostrils even from here, and the cacophony of coughing, rushed, clicking footsteps, and men and women’s voices both in equal distribution only got louder as she exited, and approached the ward, attempting to put a bounce in her step and appear cheerful, her heels clicking on the floor.

Admittedly, she was still a little shaken up from what she had witnessed only a few hours prior. It was completely and utterly barbaric that even in times as modern as these, a man should have to undergo such trauma with no pain relief at all. Molly could still feel the ghosts of his large, dirty hands gripping onto hers, as if the world was spinning so quickly he was worried he might fall off. 

The ward was small. All rooms in the building were. This was mainly because it was nothing more than a wooden and tin cabin – although they called them huts – built on a thick layer of concrete which lifted it above the mud of Northern France. The one saving grace of it was that the possibility of damp was nothing but a sliver.

There were eighteen beds with cheap metal frames on each side of the rectangular room, meaning they had room for thirty-six patients at any given time. However, there was always more than thirty-six patients. The positioning of the beds created a hallway between the ends of the beds with ample room for people such as herself to get to and from each patient. For a moment, she observed. Nurses tended to the soldiers with as much tenderness and empathy as possible, but Molly knew she’d be lying if she said that it wasn’t spread thin because of the sheer number of men that needed care.

She scanned the room for him. 

Molly hadn’t been able to think of anything but him since Doctor Watson had told her to go and get some rest, after she had taken care of the rest of his wounds and cleaned his entire body. The way his chest had fallen and rose in jittery, shallow movements, fluttering about his breath. How his pale, almost sallow skin, had been flushed with the colour of exertion. By the end of it he had been flickering in and out of consciousness, that much she was glad of. She hoped he didn’t remember it, that the confusion had simply clouded it over. Because _she_ certainly did.

Her eyes latched onto him. He looked just like every other unlucky bastard in the room. His face, sallow and drawn; his frame, frail underneath a paper thin sheet and a nearly non-existent pillow. She couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep – although it was probably the latter – because of the bandages at eye level around his head, flattening his buoyant hair. It had been to combat the gas-inflicted wounds around his eyes.

“Hooper!” Sister Mary had finally spotted her dawdling, it seemed. “You’re on cleaning duty today, you lucky so-and-so. Take that gormless look off your face and put out the washed sheets, please.” Her initially strict expression had now melted into one of lightly annoyed fondness.

“Right away.” She smiled, and turned to walk away. It seemed that today was one of the calmest they had had in at least six months. Sherlock Holmes had been lucky – well, as lucky as a man with a missing leg can get, anyway.

Then again, a relatively slow pace at the ward was never a good thing. All it meant was the calm before the storm. Attempting not to dwell on what she could not escape, and instead using the rare peace to escape as best she could. She thought of Tom, and of seeing him again, and if she really wanted to. Molly started pegging out the large, thin white sheets, her shoes sinking into the mud beneath her. It was a bright and clear, yet deathly cold, December morning.

* * *

Around fifteen minutes passed before she was back in the ward. As she did her duties – sterilized the surgical equipment, mopped the floors, took out bedpans – her eyes still lingered on the Holmes man. He was so still it was almost unnerving. She might’ve thought he was dead, if not for the occasional grunt of pain that escaped him. Pain medication had since been administered to take the edge off, however, she didn’t doubt that he still felt that dull ache with every heartbeat.

She was helping one recovered soldier to his feet when he spoke out for a nurse. Little more than a nurse, but she visibly perked at the noise. Still taking care with the patient at hand, she made sure he could walk without so much as a wobble, before exchanging a smile with him, and watching him walk out, to a van that would be waiting to take him back to that raging hell out on the front. 

Molly rushed over to him, leaning down slightly, and speaking gently. “I’m Nurse Hooper, Mr Holmes. What is it you need?”

He struggled to sit upright, gritting his teeth and wincing. She brought her hands to his forearms softly in an attempt to help. He stopped to bat her away with a certain vehemence she had never witnessed before. Molly swallowed.

“Water.” He said, when he was finally sat up properly. His voice was strained and cracked, from what could only be his screaming last night. Or, this morning. 

“Just a second.” She manoeuvred across the room, dodging through the other nurses, to get to the jug of water and one of the glasses, bringing both over to his bed. She poured it generously and set down the jug on the small bedside table.

Molly brought the cup to his lips, and – 

He took it off her roughly, and pushed her away, turning from her as he drank. Her mouth parted in shock. It was as if he despised her for trying to help. He set the glass down on the bedside table hard but recklessly, almost knocking the jug off in the process.

“How – how are you feeling this morning, Mr Holmes?” She sat on the side of his bed. 

“Oh, splendid, thank you for asking. The birds are singing and the sun is presumably shining, I’ve lost a leg and probably gone blind. The only thing that could make today any better was if the Hun burst in here themselves and killed us all in a storm of righteous rifle-fire. And yourself?”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Molly settled on biting her lip. “I’m sorry, I… I just don’t really know how else to ask.”

“You’re a nurse. I know the government’s stretched thin, but surely you should have at least an ounce of wrangled bedside manner?” He tensed his jaw and looked away. It had just occurred to her that he had been facing her, even though he couldn’t see her. “Why don’t you stop with the pointless questions, and just ask me what you need to, and then shut up and leave me be?”

She cleared her throat, thankful that he couldn’t see the deeply embarrassed blush set on her face. 

“How does your throat feel?”

“Like sandpaper.” He paused. “But not closing up.”

“And your eyes?” 

“Burning.” There was a longer pause, this time, and she could tell there was something he wanted to say, yet couldn’t bring himself to.

“You’re surprisingly well comprehended, given your situation.” She hoped the smile on her face travelled in her voice.

“You should see me on my good days.” He muttered. She laughed, and he snapped to face her.

“Now, what was it that you wanted to ask me?”

“Am I going to go blind, Nurse?”

Molly chewed on her lip. “We,” Would he? “We really don’t know. Only time will tell.” He sighed, and turned to face forward again. “I’m sorry.” 

She studied his profile. He really wasn’t the kind of handsome that you might find in the movies, and yet, she found herself considering him a good-looking man. Strange. 

“Would it be okay if I changed your dressings, Mr Holmes?” 

“Do what you must.” A resigned tone, as he leaned back onto the headboard. 

Molly nodded to herself, and then pulled back the covers to below his feet. They were bony and long and just as unpleasant as you’d imagine, considering that they had been in boots 24/7 for the last god-knows-how-long, boots that had been stuck in wet mud, which had soaked through the cruddy material of it. Her heart sank. 

Then, her eyes went to his dressings. She took out rubbing alcohol from the front pocket of her apron and sterilized her hands with it, the smell making her eyes water. Molly was half glad that he couldn’t see, because the stump that had been left after the messy amputation was clad in blood-saturated cloth bandage. Walking over to a cabinet on wheels which was conveniently placed at the end of the bed, she took out the needed items. Putting a ceramic container on the floor next to her, she began to remove the bandage, dropping it into the container. 

“Nurse, where am I?” He asked, nonchalant, as if absorbed in something else entirely.

“Etaples Military Base.” 

He seemed to go rigid at this. “Etaples, you say?”

“That’s right.” She smiled softly, before looking up at his expression. “You seem shocked.”

“No, no,” Mr Holmes seemed to try to relax himself. “You’re just being thoughtlessly rough with what seems to be classed as nursing now days, is all.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

He gave no response, only settled down properly into his seat. She cleaned her hands with the rubbing alcohol again, and, then took out a clean washcloth, soaked it in a bowl of warm water and soap, and then squeezed the excess out over it. She took pains to be as gentle as possible when she pressed it to the wound. Mr Holmes audibly gasped at the contact, digging his fingers into the bed and scrunching up the linen under him, his teeth once again gritted. 

“Sorry, sorry,” She kept at it, though. He kept silent, riding the pain out the only way he could think, the only way he had ever been taught, probably. When cleaning the wound was finished, all dried blood and drainage had been cleaned, she put the cloth in the waste bowl with the old dressings.

Molly produced a fresh towel, and lightly patted it the wound dry. “Would you like me to contact anybody, Mr Holmes? Maybe you could dictate a letter to me, or I could help you over to the telephone, later.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Clipped, a deep voice edging on annoyed. As if she kept interrupting him. But from what?

She pressed her lips together. Why did she keep saying the wrong thing? And what was she supposed to say, anyway? Resigning her effort from him slightly, she concentrated on redressing the wound efficiently, cleanly. When she was finished, the bandages were so crisp, white, and neat, she half wanted to show someone else, just to brag about it.

Molly patted his thigh mildly. “Done. Is there anything else I can do?”

“Take the bandages on my face off.” 

She smiled sadly, standing up from the side of his bed and pulling the cover back over him. “I can’t do that.”

“Then why did you ask?” The tip of his nose crinkled in an angry disdain, and almost disappeared under the bandages. “If there are things that you’re unable to do, why offer to do ‘anything’?” 

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Her tone was non-threatening, easy. “But just know that you won’t be able to take your anger out on people forever. You’ll be hated.”

“Because _that_ would be a change.” Mr Holmes mused, sarcasm thick in his baritone.

She laughed, smiling at him, even though he couldn’t see it. 

The door of the hut opened, to reveal a tall man, in a smart three-piece suit, and an umbrella. Molly recognised him instantly. His lip was curled in disgust, as he tried to stomp the mud off his expensive shoes. Then, he started walking to her. 

Lifting an ear to the pace, Mr Holmes obviously knew the man, too. His expression of utter exasperation showed it all too well.


	3. The Special Treatment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More characters, more illness, less defensiveness.

“Mr Holmes, what brings you here?” Molly asked, watching Mycroft walk past her, and to the other Hol – oh. The _other_ Holmes. Why had she not put that together earlier? They were related!

“Sherlock?” 

He sighed, and moved his head to face his brother. And if there had been no bandages over his eyes, he’d have been staring him straight in the face.

“Mycroft. And you’d think I’d suffered enough.”

“Save the childishness for later. I’m going to move you into the hotel across the way. Get a doctor in for you.”

“Would you keep your voice down?” Sherlock hissed, even though it was clear that no one else could hear, or was interested in the conversation. “Or do you want to humiliate me further?”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“I’m a _soldier_. It would be outrageous for me to get any sort of special treatment.”

“But you’re also _my brother_.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Sherlock, I cannot leave you in this pokey, running-on-fumes, glorified shed of a medical bay. Not over my dead body, I’m afraid.”

“Dear God, Mycroft, I refuse to–”

“Glorified shed?” Molly repeated, anger rising in her chest. “Glorified shed?!”

Mycroft’s shoulders slumped in annoyance, looking at her over his shoulder. “Haven’t you got work to do?”

His sharp eyes dug into her. “You interrupted my work.”

“Do I have to remind you how to speak to your superiors, Miss Hooper?”

“Mycroft.” It was barely over a whisper, but it was guttural and dark. “If you’re going to cause an argument, then you can bloody well leave. In fact, there’s an idea. Why don’t you do that anyway?”

His face was starting to redden with anger. “You’re going to come back to the hotel with me, Sherlock.”

“No, I will not. I’m perfectly fine here.”

“Shall I tell mummy, Sherlock? Shall I tell her that you refuse to leave the communal ward?”

At this, he paused. Swallowing, he turned his head to face forward, and shrugged. “Tell her what you like.”

“Sherlock!” 

The entire ward stopped, and in one move, looked to Mycroft. Nurses had already been stealing glances at the infamous general, but now even the patients joined in. Sherlock sighed, lightly pressing his fingertips to the side of his head. 

“And now you’ve gone and given me a headache. Nurse, I think some more morphine might be in order.” 

Mycroft stared at him, as if only just containing his rage beneath his calm exterior. He straightened up, clearing his throat, and looking around. “Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this.”

“I wouldn’t imagine it.” 

Turning, he nodded to Molly. She gave a pursed-lip smile, and ducked her head out of the eye contact. All she could do was look at Sherlock, then. He seemed perfectly calm, unperturbed, as if nothing had ever happened.

“Are you alright?”

“I might be better if you hurried up with that morphine, Nurse.”

“I’m sorry, but the morphine rounds came round only an hour ago. I know for a fact they won’t have missed you out. So I really doubt that you’re in any type of pain at all, actually.”

“Then why did you ask if I was alright?” He snapped.

“Because you look sad.”

His mouth parted, and he turned to her. She wondered what colour his eyes were, underneath all that bandaging. She could only faintly remember them before they had turned that strange shade of white, as she really had been concentrating on the more important stuff. Molly guessed that it must be brown, as he did have dark hair, after all. Or maybe he was that striking combination of black and blue, like a human bruise. Of course, she could always just ask him, but he seemed the type to scoff at such an insignificant question.

“I believe my brother was right when he suggested that you had some work to do. You should probably get on with it, before you get chastised again.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re right, I suppo – wait, you heard that?”

“Amongst other things.” Something that resembled a smile flickered across his face – and then it was gone.

Feeling eyes on them, she turned, to see Caroline helping a man into the once empty bed to the left of them. He looked practically filthy, sweat prickling on his forehead and slicking down his brown hair, a dull shade of death shining from out behind his grey eyes. Caroline was relatively new, and a bit of a gossip, a bit of a scatter-brain, and a bit of an air-head. What possessed her to come here, Molly wasn’t entirely sure.

“Make sure you treat him for body lice, Caroline.”

Caroline paused, her jaw going a little rigid. “Of course.” Her voice was as taut as the string of a violin.

* * *

“– Yes, his brother!” Sally leant across the table to Caroline, face lit up with scandal. “Can you believe it?”

“But how come he’s a general, and his little brother’s just a regular Tommy?”

Molly was trying not to listen, just trying to focus on the food on her place. It all seemed a little grey toned, as if the vibrancy had been squeezed out of the peas and carrots. 

“Oh, I bet it’s because he wanted to get his hands dirty.” Sally was an American nurse, meaning that she didn’t quite understand the need for subtlety that was engrained into the British that surrounded her. She was a favourite with the boys because A, she was beautiful, B, she was funny and didn’t take any ‘crap’, as she called it, and C, she wasn’t afraid to share either of these attributes with the Tommies. 

“What, do his duty?” Caroline pressed her lips together in hesitation. “How admirable of him.”

“Admirable!” Sally laughed. “So you admire him? Is that how you Brits talk about crushes?”

Caroline went white as a sheet. “What? No, I-I never,” 

“So, Molly, you’re the only one that’s really spoken to him. What’s he like?”

“Hm?” She looked up at Sally. “Oh, exactly what you’d expect, really.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, he’s lost half of his leg, Sally. And he might have gone blind. He’s scared.” Honestly, she didn’t really want to talk about him. It felt wrong – worse, it felt unprofessional. He was a patient that needed their help. Not a man to be gossiped about.

“And what was the General talking to him about before?”

“Just asking him if he was okay, the usual.”

“Right.” Sally gave Caroline a look. A gaggle of American nurses came up behind them, having finished their food early. They tapped her shoulder. Sally grinned. “Well, girls, I’m going into town for the night. You take care, now.”

Molly sighed, and got back to her food. With the soldiers, she always put her best front on – God knows, they needed something that wasn’t out to kill them – but off the clock, she never had enough energy to as much as start a conversation. All she did was sleep and eat and work. 

“It’s not fair, is it?” Caroline asked, taking a sip of water.

“What’s not?”

“That they get to go out into town with the soldiers, and we have to stay.”

She was right. British nurses weren’t allowed to fraternize with the men, whereas the Canadians and Americans could do anything they wanted, in that respect.

* * *

Molly couldn’t sleep. Her mind flickered from pillar to post, from Tom to her parents, to what could have been if it wasn’t for this bloody war. Rising up from the bottom bunk, she slid into her boots, and started across and out of the room, down the hallway to the pigeon-holes. The post came in in the middle of the night, so that letter from Tom should be there. 

There was a white envelope waiting for her. It was strange how something so innocent could be so foreboding. Tom was a romantic, and he was going to be on leave soon. She hoped that he wouldn’t ask what she thought he was going to ask, at least not now. Molly just needed a little more time, time to live on her own. Even if she was – 

Coughing. 

The soldiers coughed all the time in the ward. Of course they did. But not like that. Not like their throats were torn to shreds and they were about to hack up their own lungs. Stuffing the letter carelessly into the pocket of her dressing gown, she went into the ward, and saw that the afflicted one was exactly the one she had hoped it was.

Pacing over to him, she automatically rested her hand on his – and almost recoiled at the heat of it. “Sherlock?”

“Nurse, I,” He bent over, his hand going to his mouth, as he let out another violent cough. 

She laid the back of her hand to his forehead, and felt a scalding heat, and the clamminess of his skin against hers. For some reason, the cool that normally gripped Molly was hanging by a thread, and she had to fight to keep her nerve. 

“You have a fever.” Then she was in the vice of panic. Was it something that she had done? Had she not properly sterilised him, and now his wound was infected? Pulling his sheets down, she could barely see his body in the light of the dim lightbulb. Unwrapping his bandaging, she saw that it was definitely on its way to recovery, and not infected in the slightest.

He muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, followed by a groan of pain. His body was quaking like a leaf, which made no sense – his hands were the worst, jittering, his whole body an earthquake of skin.

“What else? Do you feel anything else, Sherlock?”

“It hurts when I move my eyes. My-my head feels as if it’s about to explode. The muscles in my legs and back are sore.”

With a pang, realisation hit her. Trench Fever. But how…

“Excuse me?” She asked the man that Caroline had brought in just today, having to shake him awake.

“Wha – what?” He asked, his voice crackling, his eyes groggy.

“The nurse that brought you in – Caroline – did she treat you for body lice?”

“What? Well, uh,” He screwed his eyes shut with fatigue. “No, no.”

“ _What_?!”

“She said she couldn’t see any, so she didn’t need to.”

Now it was anger flooding her, heating her bloodstream. “That stupid little…” But now wasn’t the time for scolding. Now was the time for action. “I’m going to have to put you in the isolation room, Sherlock. If this spreads, it could,” Molly decided not to end that sentence. 

As if on cue, Sister Mary appeared at the doorway. “Miss Hooper? What on Earth are you doing?”

“It’s Mr Holmes, Sister. He’s got Trench Fever.”

“Trench Fever?! From who?”

“This man, I suspect.”

 

Sister Mary rolled a wheelchair through the hallway towards them. “And who was in charge of cleaning him?”

She paused. “I don’t know.”

Mary didn’t seem to care whether Molly was lying or not. They helped the overheating Sherlock into the wheelchair. “You take care of this one. I’ll deal with cleaning up the other, before it spreads.”

“Yes Sister.” 

Molly took him into the isolation room – clean and mostly unused, airier and cooler than the other rooms, an unusually large bathtub at one end and a bed at the other – and helped him off the wheelchair, and so that he was sat on the bed. He coughed again, and his body tensed with it. 

“I’m going to run you a hot bath. It’s the only way to make sure that the body lice don’t pass onto you.”

“You knew who helped that man. You said her name. Caroline.”

She ignored his ramblings, however accurate they were. “It’ll only be ten minutes.”

“Why didn’t you tell the nun? Why? Is she your friend?”

Molly sighed, as she walked over to the bath, and turned on the hot tap. “Does it matter?”

“It’ll keep me preoccupied. You know, so I can take my mind off the fact that I may actually die very soon.”

“I’m sure you’ve had to deal with that thought before you even got here.”

“Just entertain a fellow, won’t you?”

She smiled looking over at the vision of him, and it faded quickly. He was shaking so violently, yet he was hot to the touch. So thin and drawn, his black curls hanging over his bandages, his hands interlocked in his lap. “I wasn’t doing it because she was a friend.”

“Oh?”

“No. This, um, might sound vindictive, but,” She tested the temperature of the water. “I did it because I wanted to be the one to tell her off.”

He finally laughed. It shocked her so much she feared she would faint. It was rich and deep, maybe even attractive. “You’re right.”

“About what?”

“That does sound vindictive.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “If it makes you smile, I suppose I can be even more vindictive for you.” Then Sherlock went quiet, and she wondered what she had done wrong. “Tha-that wasn’t flirting.”

“I know.” A ghost of a smile wandered onto his face. 

“Now, let me help you get undressed.”

A pause. “Now, you can’t deny that _that_ was flirting.” He joked.

“Ha-ha, Mr Holmes.” Good-humoured sarcasm flooded her tone, as she walked over to him. “Are you not comfortable with me… helping you?”

“I fear that attempting to myself – the way my hands are shaking – would prove a great deal more embarrassing.”

“Trust me, it’s nothing I haven’t seen a million times before.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to take the bandages of your eye off, and the ones on your leg should already be waterproof.”

He only nodded in a response. Molly briefly wondered if he was nervous. Reaching around to the back of his head, she began undoing it, and then unwinding the material many times around his head. It slipped off, and then she took the cotton away. His eyes were shut at first, and the skin looked even more delicate than the rest of him.

Frowning, his eyes slowly opened. Molly’s heart missed a step, as they met hers. They were an intoxicating concoction of blue and green, harsh but soft at the same time, and looking right into her. He squinted, and blinked a few times.

“Can you see?” She murmured.

“I – I can only make out your outline. You’re nothing but a dark shadow and a voice.”

“Close them. Don’t strain them, whatever you do. It could be possible that you’ll make a full recovery.”

“I will.” But he didn’t, not yet. “Can, can I…?” Sherlock reached out, his rough fingertips stretching to her face.

“Of course.” Leaning down meet his hands, she watched him as he tentatively took hold of her, his long fingers tracing down the plains of her face. He measured the narrowness of her nose, the sharpness of her jaw, the fullness of her lips. Molly’s heart was racing. Her mind wandered to illicit things – what his hands might feel like on other parts of her, gentle and barely there, maybe even what it would be like if she closed the space between them and kissed him. Then she felt shame. He was a patient, after all. Someone she was supposed to be looking after. How would he feel if he could read her thoughts? 

Molly straightened up again. “So, tell me about your England.”

“ _My_ England?”

“I find that everyone has a different version. What does your version have waiting for you?”

“Well, I…” Her hands went to the buttons of his shirt.

“Is it alright if I start now?”

“Yes.”

“Go on, then.” She hummed lightly as she went down the buttons, revealing that same marble tone. “You’ve already told me about Baker Street. What about your parents? Do you have a sweetheart?”

“My parents are landowners. They’re nosey.” He smiled, reminiscing, and something in her chest pulled. “A sweetheart – not as such. I have a fiancée.” 

She felt a strange pang of dread, that she tried to ignore. “Really?” 

Molly watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Yes.”

“That’s lovely. Don’t you want to write to her?”

“No, thank you.”

She frowned. She wanted to know more, but the topic seemed to be restoring his cloak of annoyance. So she dropped it. Taking his pyjama shirt completely off him, she folded it on the bed, and then started on his trousers. Molly tried not to notice the way he held his breath when he felt that, or the way it then hitched in his throat when she took off his underwear. 

“I know you can’t see, but I’m not looking.”

“I’ll just have to take your word on that.”

Somehow, she managed to get him into the bath with minor fuss, with a mechanism of Sherlock sitting on the edge, and then slowly manoeuvring him from there. He let out a sigh when he felt the perfectly hot water, his aching muscles relaxing.

“You’ll be alright on your own for a minute, won’t you? I’ve just got to go and throw your clothes into one of the fires in the camp.”

He let out a long hum, that sounded like a yes. 

When she got back in from the deathly cold, she found that he had fallen asleep in the bath. Smiling, she took the time to sit on the bed, and produce Tom’s letter from her pocket. Tearing it open with no regard for the envelope, she pulled out the paper, her eyes settling on the neat and contained handwriting. 

_My Dear Molly,  
For the longest time before I asked you to marry me I had been thinking it over, and I was and still am quite certain of my own feelings. But I feel a rotter for asking you when I did. I ought to have waited, for one thing, until this war was over, and not to mention until I had more of an idea of your feelings. _

“What are you doing?” 

She jerked upward in fright at his voice, looking to see that he was now awake, but not facing her. “Just reading a letter.”

“From who?”

“My fiancé.” 

“I didn’t feel a ring on your finger.”

“He proposed to me only a few exchanges of letters ago. We haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

“I see. He’s a soldier, then?”

“Of course. He’s out on the front, just like you were.” She bit her lip, rubbing the paper between her fingers. Although what she felt for Tom wasn’t any sort of fiery passion or righteous true love, she truly did like him, and didn’t want to see him hurt in any sort of way, especially not at her own hands. “He’s coming on leave in two weeks’ time. I suppose he wants us to get married then.”

“You don’t sound particularly overjoyed.”

“What? Well, I’m tired, is all.” 

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s my job, Sherlock. There’s nothing that you ought to be sorry about.” Molly folded up the letter, saving the rest of the message for later. Right now, she had more important things to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry for the long update time! I'm finally broken up for summer, though, so now I should actually have some time for writing. Thanks for being patient :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! The chapters will probably be much longer than this one, but I like to do a short one to start off with, usually. And don't worry, it won't always be this depressing. What did you think?


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